Barack Obama's new strength: foreign policy

AP Photo/Jose Luis MaganaPresident Barack Obama prior to boarding Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.Barack Obama may be playing defense on the domestic front, but he’s clearly taken the offensive in an area not normally a source of Democratic Party strength — national security and foreign policy.

In recent days and weeks, administration efforts have resulted in the deaths of 12 of the top 20 al Qaeda leaders, the result mostly of attacks by pilotless drone aircraft over Pakistan; the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, number two Taliban boss in Pakistan and leader of the military campaign in Afghanistan; and the launch of a 15,000-troop attack against the principal poppy-rich Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan.

You didn’t know that? It was all there in the newspapers. Of course, if you get your news from television, especially cable television, you probably didn’t see it.

Bad news, cockamamie commentary and round-the-clock controversy, real and imaginary, is mostly all you get on cable these days. Why bother with good news, like success against distant terrorists, when bad news back home makes the viewers manic and drives up ratings.

But Dick Cheney’s criticism notwithstanding, the truth is that Obama’s on a tear against terrorism in two of its key breeding grounds — Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Some Republicans have grudgingly acknowledged the success of the president’s stepped-up campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban, but argue that it’s merely a continuation of Bush administration policy. If so, it’s Bush policy on steroids.

For the fact is the Bush team, in its preoccupation with Iraq and nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, did virtually nothing for eight years to counter the Taliban comeback in Afghanistan.

At the same time, Obama’s trips abroad and meetings with world leaders have made real progress in repairing the damage to the American image abroad done by the Bush-Cheney policy of unilateralism and of disdain for the opinions or interests of allies.

Some of Obama’s Republican critics complain — with a bit of justification — that he’s been too solicitous of opinion abroad, too apologetic for the brusqueness of the Bush years. But that certainly is not the case in his recent treatment of the Chinese.

Beijing’s communist bosses went ballistic over Obama’s decision to sell more modern arms, including sophisticated missile systems and jet fighters, to breakaway Taiwan. And he rubbed Beijing the wrong way again last week by meeting the Dalai Lama in the White House, a move likely to lend support to Tibetan demands for some form of autonomy within China, if not outright freedom.

It’s not the kind of thing likely to boost Obama’s polls in any serious way back home. But it does disarm critics who believe Obama, and Bush before him, kow-towed too often to the newly assertive Chinese. It’s a little thing, but not unimportant in shoring up the Democratic Party’s image as a weak sister in foreign policy and national security.

Republicans have been exploiting that calumny against Democrats for decades — back to the McCarthy era in the early 1950s, but especially since the bitter conclusion to the Vietnam War in the early 1970s. For too long, GOP rhetoric has depicted Democrats as unpatriotic, even "Un-American." You can hear it today at Tea Party and some conservative gatherings.

Actually, history makes just the opposite argument about Democrats. Most of American wars for a century have been fought by Democratic administrations — World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam. And it was Democrat Bill Clinton who led the way in lifting the Serbian genocide against Muslims in Bosnia, only to be attacked by Bush Republicans for "nation-building."

Americans of a "certain age" will recall that isolationism on the eve of World War II was primarily led by Republicans; it was Democrats under Franklin Roosevelt who primarily made the case for facing the threat posed by fascism.

What it comes down to is this: Republicans talk the tough talk of war more readily than Democrats do, but Democratic administrations have walked the walk more often.

For his part, Obama seems to be following a familiar old American strategy: speak softly but carry a big stick.

It’s not a new idea. Used to be a Republican idea, in fact. Worked pretty well for Teddy Roosevelt, you’ll recall.